"To the casual onlooker, the graduation ceremony at the University College of North Wales, Bangor, in July 1949 was similar to those carried out annually for decades. The successful undergraduates were lined up and called one by one onto the rostrum to be accepted as graduates of the University of Wales by its chancellor.

The careful observer, however, would have noticed a difference to previous years - a handful of graduates were older and more mature than the majority, who were in their early twenties. Also, a glance at the invited audience would have revealed a few younger women amongst the middle aged parents clearly the wives or fiancés of the older graduates, who were in fact ex-servicemen, of whom I was one.

1949 was the first year after World War II that we ex-servicemen graduated with honours degrees. We were some of the few to be demobbed in mid 1946 and who also had the necessary qualifications to be allowed to skip the one year preliminary course and to start the three years honours course in October 1946.

Of the total intake at Bangor that year, perhaps five per cent were ex-servicemen. In chemistry, for example, of the 15 or so starting the three year honours course, four were ex-servicemen - Bob Perrin and Roddy Wetherall were ex Army, Roland Thomas had been in the Navy, whilst I had served in the RAF for six years.

I was different to the others, because I had started the course in 1937 and had expected to graduate in 1940 instead of nine years later.

I was born and brought up on a small remote dairy farm at Sychdyn near Mold in North East Wales. The twice daily hand milking, with a pony and trap milk round, meant hard work for 365 days a year, not only for my parents but also for my younger brother and me.

Holidays were impossible and for we boys the occasional trip to Chester market and the annual Sunday School outing to Rhyl, 20 miles away, were the limits of our travel.

My brother and I were avid readers, particularly of history and geography, and while I was interested in sport and knocking a ball against a wall with a tennis racquet or cricket bat, my brother had a natural bent for carpentry and engineering.

We were a very happy and close family and our parents spared no effort in ensuring we had a good education, in spite of the fact that money was short because agriculture was in the doldrums during the great recession of the 1930's.

In 1937 I completed the sixth form course and in October moved on to Bangor University, while my brother started sixth form. Six months or so later our father died and there was no alternative but for we boys to cut short our education to run the farm.

When I returned home from Bangor there was little time to grieve or to contemplate the future. In addition to the milking and milk round, we had to learn to care for the cattle, to plough and harvest crops and to hire and handle casual labour that was employed during particularly busy periods. We had to look after the accounts and soon realised the monetary pressures that our parents had been under and why margins could not support the cost of permanent skilled labour.

We tried various measures to increase output, but we were against the fundamental fact that our farm was too big for one person and too small for two. The farm had an onerous mortgage and capital, was in desperate need of modernisation and needed a supply of electricity and running water.

There was no improvement possible in either the short or medium terms and our mother was adamant that we should not continue to struggle along and she knew that my father would have agreed.

Consequently, at the end of 1939 we decided to sell the farm. What then? Working as farm labourers was unthinkable, restarting university and sixth forms unaffordable. World War II had started earlier and when the farm was finally sold in 1940, both my brother and I decided to join the RAF as aircrew.

This decision proved to have a major effect on my life.